Former Palmer High coach, player to enter ASAA Hall of Fame

PALMER — Jeremiah Richards can still hardly believe it.

Last winter, a local senator, a former high school teammate and a coach tracked down Richards, a 1997 graduate of Palmer High School and former multisport standout with the Moose. Sen. Bill Stoltze; another Palmer graduate and football player, Jason Kepler; and longtime Palmer High head football coach Rod Christiansen were working to nominate Richards for one of the greatest honors in Alaska sports.

The group wanted Richards to be part of the 2015 class of the Alaska Schools Activities Association Hall of Fame. Richards had the resume, a two-sport high school star and NAIA All-American, but he still couldn’t believe it.

“I told them when they were talking to me, look at the DePriests, the Christiansens,” Richards said by cell phone from his home in Kansas recently, citing names synonymous with Palmer High athletics. “Really, you want to pick me?”

But that’s Richards, someone known as well for his character and humility as his athletic achievements.

Sunday, Richards will be among 11 individuals inducted into the ASAA Hall of Fame. Richards will also be recognized alongside one of the greatest and most noteworthy figures in Alaska wrestling, former Palmer High School coach Lancer Smith.

“I’m honored they thought of me,” Richards said.

Richards and Smith will be recognized at a pair of events this weekend. The Palmer Lions Club and Sen. Stoltze are hosting a reception Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at Machetanz Field at Palmer High School. Hot dogs and soft drinks will be provided. The formal induction and ASAA ceremony is Sunday at 5 p.m. at the Anchorage Hilton.

Richards and Smith are the first ASAA Hall of Fame inductees with ties to Palmer High.

Richards — now a husband, father of five and supervisor at a manufacturing plant — is making the trip from Kansas to Southcentral Alaska for the events. At Palmer High, Richards enjoyed stellar careers in both football and track and field. On the football field, Richards, a tight end and defensive lineman, helped lead the Moose to the back-to-back ASAA state title games in 1995 and 1996. Palmer won the state championship, its lone football title in school history, in 1995. As a senior in 1996, Richards was named Alaska Lineman of the Year and Alaska Player of the Year. He was also named first-team all-state as tight end his junior and senior year, and a first-team all-state defensive lineman as a senior.

Richards was also a three-time individual state champion in track and field. He won the state discus title as a sophomore and junior in 1995 and 1996, and the state shot put title as a senior in 1997.

Richards also excelled at the next level, earning NAIA All-American honors at Benedictine College in Kansas. According to his ASAA Hall of Fame biography, Richards, in 1999, became Benedictine’s first track and field athlete in school history to place nationally at the NAIA National Championships. He was a two-time All-American in the discus, finishing fourth in 1999 as a sophomore, and third in 2000 as a junior.

Richards was also named All-American as a tight end in football at Benedictine.

Richards said his ASAA Hall of Fame induction certainly ranks high on his list of accomplishments.

“It’s way up there,” Richards said. “I’m extremely honored.”

After graduating from Benedictine, Richards enlisted in the United States Army, and served more than seven years in the military.

“I felt like it was a great time to serve the country,” Richards said. “I really loved it. But it was a lot of time away from my family.”

Richards spent two years in Korea, and was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, for the remainder of his service. Richards also had two stints in Iraq.

Sunday’s induction can be added to a long list of achievements for Smith as well, a longtime local wrestling coach, college All-American and Olympian. Smith was nominated for ASAA induction by Duncan Shackelford, a Palmer High graduate and former longtime head football coach at Dimond and Chugiak, and will be honored posthumously.

Smith continues to stand among the biggest figures in the history of Alaska wrestling. From the time he came to Alaska during the summer of 1971, until after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor five years before his death in 2002, Smith was central to the success of Alaska amateur wrestling.

Smith, a longtime Palmer High coach who also spent time with the Colony wrestling program, is already a member of the Alaska Wrestling Hall of Fame and the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

“He used to say ‘it’s all the kids. It’s not me, it’s the kids.’ He was a great coach,” Smith’s wife Joanne told the Frontiersman prior to his induction in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Smith spent 18 years as the head coach of Palmer High wrestling. Before arriving in Alaska in 1971, Smith was an All-American at Diablo Valley Junior College in Pleasant Hill, California, and a two-time Big Sky Conference Champion at Division I Idaho State.

For more about Smith’s legacy, see this past Frontiersman feature: http://www.frontiersman.com/sports/lancer-the-legend-to-be-inducted-in-national-wrestling-hall/article_e507895a-0fb4-557f-b794-19573ee03326.html.

Former Dimond High School standout and professional football player for the Denver Broncos Chris Kuper; longtime Point Hope basketball coach Rex Rock Sr.; former Lathrop High football standout and NFL player Reggie Tongue; longtime Fairbanks area head coach Ted DeLeon; longtime Seward and Sand Point coach Roger Steinbrecher; and former Norvik basketball coach Mike Zibell are also among the individuals who will be inducted Sunday.

The Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks will be recognized as a major contributor.